WORLD'S END

In the meantime Beauty's heart would be in her mouth every moment. Oh, why, why did the life of men have to be an affair of danger, of obsessing and incessant terror?

Lanny promised to wait in the room, and positively not to leave it unless the hotel burned down. If a German officer were to arrive, what should be done with him? Hide him in the boudoir? Or send him out to walk in the parks? Lanny argued for the former. What chance was there of the Sыretй connecting Kurt with them? But Beauty was ready with an answer. Emily had named the other guests at that musicale. The agents would interview them, and ask the same questions they had asked Emily; surely some of them would remember Beauty! Perhaps already the police had her name and were on the way to question her! If her son were in the room, that would be all right; but Kurt must go out into the Pare Monceau, take a book, sit on a bench, and look like a poet; watch the rich children playing, and flirt with the bonnes like a Frenchman. "All right, all right," said Lanny.

IV

He wrote his mother a check, and while she dressed they discussed makes of cars, probable prices, and routes to Spain; also the possibilities of Kurt's evading the police or soldiers at the border, by paying a guide and climbing through the mountain passes. It would be the Basque country, which Beauty had traveled in happier days; but no day ever so happy as that one, if she lived to see it, when she and her new lover would be free in Spain. Again Lanny remembered his anthology. Young Lochinvar had come out of the east this time, and the steeds that would follow were swifter than any hero of Sir Walter Scott could ever have dreamed: sixty miles per hour on the roads and a hundred and fifty through the air-to say nothing of messages that traveled round the earth in the seventh part of a second.

Beauty telephoned; she was making progress; was there any news? Lanny said no, and she hung up. Another hour, and she tried again; more progress, but still no news. So it went through the longest of days. She came back late and reported she had a car safely stored in a garage. All the formalities had been attended to; she had paid, five francs here, ten francs there, and petty functionaries had hastened to oblige her. She had a passport in the name of Mabel Budd. That had been arranged through an influential friend to whom she had explained that she didn't want to be a widow any more; he had smiled, and offered to relieve her of the handicap forever. Many matters could be arranged in France if you were a beautiful woman and able to have clothes which did you justice.

She had had the passport visaed for Spain, and had bought a map. With her to the hotel came a man carrying a large package containing a uniform for a tall chauffeur. They stowed it under the bed, where perhaps the Sыretй Gйnйrale would overlook it. That completed everything that Beauty and her son could think of; all that was needed now was a chauffeur to put inside the uniform.

Lanny, having done his part, must return to the Crillon and forget this dangerous business. If anyone questioned him, he was to say that he knew nothing about it whatever. The mother sat at the escritoire and wrote a note on hotel stationery: "Dear Lanny: I have gone away on a short trip; will wire you soon. Have a chance to sell some of Marcel's paintings. Adieu." That would be his alibi in case he should be questioned. When she got into Spain, she would wire him. If she or Kurt got into trouble, he must go to Emily Chattersworth and make a confession of the whole affair and beg for her help with the French authorities. Beauty kissed him many times, and told him he was a darling - no news to him.

He went back to the question of Shantung, which now was destroying the peace of mind of the Crillon staff. His mother went to packing her belongings, and then to pacing the floor and smoking one cigarette after another. She couldn't eat anything, she couldn't think anything but: "Kurt! Kurt!" She saw him in a score of different places with the hands of French police agents being laid upon his shoulders. She saw herself weeping in Emily's room, pleading for forgiveness, explaining how she had kept this dreadful secret from her friend for the friend's own good. She saw herself on her knees before French officials, weeping, begging for mercy which they wouldn't or couldn't grant. Always she saw herself hating war, going to live in some part of the world where it wasn't - but what part was that? Why had God made so many wretched creatures, born to trouble as the sparks fly upward? Because of a pious upbringing, Beauty had phrases like this in her mind.

V